Monday, June 15, 2015

1644 - The Kieft's War

January 18,
1644 - Bewildered, Bostonians see for the first time an "unidentified
flying object" in the sky.

January, 1644
- Dutch settlers attack and destroy Wacquaesgeek forts. In retaliation, the
Canarsee chief Penhawitz orders his men to respond by killing and burning
farms.

January, 1644 - Captain Richard Ingle lands at
St Mary's City and utters insults against the king. He is arrested for treason
by Deputy Governor of Maryland Giles Brent.

No charge
was laid against him by the Grand Jury but Brent handled him with brutality and
kicked out Captain Thomas Cornwallis for helping Ingle to escape.

Richard Ingle(1609-1653)

Ancestry of this
sailor and tobacco trader is little known. He was certainly born in London into
a Protestant family who provided for his education. He became captain of the ship Reformation ensuring the transportation of Maryland planters tobacco towards England. When began
the Civil war, Ingle sided with the Puritans.

February 5,
1644 - Connecticut enacts a law on livestock
branding for the first time in the American history.

February 25
1644 - Some African slaves who worked in New Amsterdam during more than 18
years serving the Dutch West India Company get a parole system, with the consent
of Governor Willem Kieft.

These included Big Manuel, Little Manuel, Paulo of Angola and his wife
Dorothy Creole, Simon Congo, and Anthony Portuguese. Each pair was given a plot
of land in exchange for rent payable for
life to the colony and certain obligations to the Company. Their children remained
however enslaved.
By allowing each couple to have its own house, the regime granted was behind
the creation of one of the first black communities of America.

March 7,
1644 - Massachusetts establishes a legislative two-chamber.

Squaw Sachem sells her lands to Gov. John Winthrop

March 8, 1644 - Having sold much of her lands to the colonists, queen of the
Massachusetts Squaw Sachem agrees to sign a treaty of subjugation to the
English and that her people are brought up in the Christian religion. She is
accompanied by Masconomo, sachem of the Agawam
(Ipswich) and well known by governor John Winthrop and two leaders of
Wachusett.

Requesting English protection allowed especially
Massachusetts tribes living in the North of the province to curb the threat posed
by Tarratines, always quick to carry out deadly raids in their villages.

Sqaw Sachem(? - on 1650)

Known only under this name, she was the widow of
Ninipashemit, reputed to have been the main leader of the New England Indians before
the arrival of Europeans. He ruled over all the tribes living between the Charles
River and the Piscataqua. He had his capital in Lynn until the Tarratine
War broke in 1615 against Micmacs of the Maine region. He entrenched himself on that
date on the Medford hill near the Mystic River where he made build a fortified
village. He helped the Penobscot against Tarratines but his poor successes and the
few prisoners he brought back would actually him hasten his own death and the disintegration
of his federation.

Although he came to survive the tragic disease that decimated in 1617 almost
80 % of the local population, he was killed two years later by Tarratines. The
three sons of Ninipashemit not having come of age, it therefore was down to his
wife to rule over the remainders of tribes dispersed by the war, until the
arrival of the English. She tried to strengthen
her power by threatening in particular both leaders Obattinua and Chikataubut,
who claimed to represent Massachusetts. Sqaw Sachem remarried afterward with
Pawtucket Chief Wibbacowet, the tribe's shaman also respected by his people
as a good doctor ( powow ).

Masconomo(? - 1658) was the head of the Agawam, a semi-nomadic
people belonging to the Wampanoag Federation, whose territory extended from the Merimac
to the North of Massachusetts Bay.
He had the opportunity to meet John Winthrop in 1630, aboard his ship the
Arabella, and had concluded with him the first treaty of good-neighborliness.
He had no choice, in 1658, than to give up a wide part of his lands to Ipswich
and Manchester settlers, due to the gradual depopulation of his tribe, and
died shortly after, in poverty and loneliness, distressed by the lack of
consideration of " the white man ".

Governor of New SwedenJohan Printz

March 11, 1644
- After a harsh winter, the Fama arrives in the New Sweden colony with an
important cargo.

The Swedish colony went since the beginning of the year through hard times. Supplies
brought by the last ships were insufficient for bartering with Indians and Governor
Johan Printz had to give up to the Dutch and the English the monopoly on beaver
pelts. The timely arrival of the Fama would help to revive business and to send
back to Europe an important shipment of tobacco and furs.

Since his arrival, Printz had widely encouraged the development of the
colony but was facing a serious manpower problem because only 100 men were
listed apart from women and the children. He urged the Company of New Sweden to
send him at least 1000 additional settlers and supplies in abundance.
A letter, however, sent to Sweden highlighted his inhumanity towards Indians.
He suggested to the Swedish government sending 200 soldiers to exterminate the Delaware,
claiming that it would not affect the beaver pelts trade which came mostly from
lands belonging to Minquas.

March, 1644 - Pound Ridge Massacre,a joint operation of the Dutch and English governments against the Wappinger Confederacy destroys several
Delaware villages South of New Amsterdam and on Long Island.

The first Dutch and English mixed forces were actually ineffective.
An expedition on Staten Island found only abandoned villages although corn
brought back to New Amsterdam was welcome to face the shortage of provisions that
plagued the colony. A second expedition against Wecquaesgeek forts was not more
conclusive and during another attack against villages of Siwanoy sachem Wampage,the English soldiers killed some warriors and captured old women and children.Expected results happened when John Underhill with
120 Connecticut militiamen and the Dutch settlers got on to destroy the Metoac Fort
Neck village at the western end of Long Island. They killed 120 Canarsee,
Massapequa and Merrick warriors. Further to this first success, John Underhill
and his soldiers took advantage of the night and bad weather conditions to encircle
the Indian village which hosted a party. The attack was launched under the full
moon. 180 Indians were killed outside the houses whereas only one dutch soldier
was killed. None would escape. Underhill and his co-commander Hendrick Van Dyck
decided to set fire to houses, as well as he had done when besieging Mystic during the Pequot war. All
trapped, men, women and children died in flames. They counted only 8 survivors while
loss came to 700 to 800 Indians.Soldiers executed afterward seven of their captives
in a close manner to the worst atrocities attributed to the Natives.

March 14, 1644 – The Long Parliament of England
grants a Charter to the Providence Plantations in the Narragansett Bay (Rhode
Island).
The Rhode Island colony which was originally called the Providence Plantations
is ruled by an English colonial government commission thanks to the
determination of Puritan Robert Rich, 2nd Earl de Warwick who intends to
give guarantees of religious freedom in America.

William Brewster (1566-1644)

April 6,
1644 – Stamford, following the Pound Ridge Massacre, 4 Wappinger sachems
conclude a truce with Willem Kieft. Representatives of the Matinecoc, Long
Island do not delay to do the same even if some Indian bands want to keep fighting.April 10,
1644 - William Brewster dies in Plymouth. This pilgrim of the first hour who was
one of the leaders of the Mayflower expedition had been for many years Governor
William Bradford’s closest adviser.

Spring,
1644 - Governor Johan Printz forms a company to go defend the Chester site where Delaware Indians killed 3 settlers.Printz did
not hide his intentions to do battle with the Indians and there was a good
reason for initiating hostilities.

The situation was very tense in the region
because of the war that the Dutch were leading against the tribes of the low
Hudson Valley but the Delawares headed by Chief Mattahorn who did not have to
complain about the Swedes quickly let them know that they denounced this act
and wished to preserve peace.
The Delawares
held a Council to discuss the attitude to adopt towards the Swedes. Mattahorn
asked not to attack them, what the warriors eventually agreed, deciding to
consider them as good friends.

April 1644 - After Fairfield and Stratford in 1639, the Connecticut jurisdiction
extends to two new towns: Southampton on Long Island and Farmington near
Hartford.
George Fenwick, the Governor of the Saybrook colony since 1639 sells to Connecticut
the property of the fort and the city, and promises to transfer the remaining
territory to its ownership, as far as it comes under his power.

While the Connecticut government held no
guarantee from London, assignment by Fenwick was of great interest because it gave
the colony a virtually legal status.

April, 1644
– Jesuit priest Joseph Bessani who moved from New Amsterdam to visit the Hurons inthe Niagara region
is captured by Mohawks. The Dutch have to pay a ransom for his
release.

April 14,
1644 - Edward Hopkins is elected for the second time governor of Connecticut.
He also becomes commissioner to the United Colonies of New England.

April 18, 1644 – Opechancanough, the Paramount Chiefof the Powhatan Confederacy
supported by a party of Nansemond, Chickahominy and Weyanock warriors, launches an attack
against the settlers of Virginia established along the south shore of the Pamunkey, killing
more than 400 victims.

The half-brother of Pocahontas, Opechancanough had been primarily responsible for Captain John Smith's capture in december, 1607. He was over 90 years old and almost
blind when he launched into a final attempt to drive out the Europeans from
Virginia, wishing to take advantage of religious strife that waved the colony. The
Indians arrived at dawn and massacred about 400 colonists but stopped at the
end of the first assault, certainly discouraged by a bad omen. At that time,
Virginia had 8,000 inhabitants and the massacre did not have the expected effect.

How unusual could have been Opechancanough’s life, moved, despite his
advanced age, by a steady hatred towards settlers although attending the hopeless
breakdown of the powerful Powhatan Confederacy founded by his father in the
last quarter of the 16th century. Yet, the one intended to be the ally of
Europeans had become his fiercest enemy, aware that the colonization of America
would eventually shoot down all the Native peoples and permanently install white-man
subjugation. There has been a tradition that, when the shores of Virginia were
regularly visited by Spanish explorers, 17-year old Opechancanough had embarked
on one of their boats for Spain.

He would have lived several years in Cadiz and been converted to Christianity. Trained in the Spanish language by Dominicans friars, he had
become Don Luis de Velasco, leaving in 1570 with Jesuit companions for a
mission to Christianize Powhatans. But again in contact with his people,
he would have disowned his new religion and even organized the massacre of
several priests. He was then actively engaged in the rise of the Powhatan
Confederacy which had passed in few years from 6 to 32 tribes. When Jamestown
was founded, he had captured captain John Smith but had made him release
further to the intercession of her young sister Pocahontas and also certainly
because this English settler had revealed distinctive qualities from the
European people he had once known.

He even asked at the time to consider him as his brother. Smith having
left for England, Opechancanough had taken up with his suspicious feelings towards
English settlers, especially when in 1613, these had abducted Pocahontas. Even if
he had eventually accepted her wedding with John Rolfe and attended the
ceremony, his shady and whimsical character decided however Chief Powhatan to
prefer his young brother Itopatin (Opitchapam) to succeed him, what
Opechancanough could not bear. When the time came, he engaged hostilities and
went out victorious in this intertribal struggle more through persuasion and
strength of character than by leading to a civil war, foreseeing it would benefit eventually to the colonists. The uprising triggered in 1622
did not clear off the English invader as he would have thought but had tragic
aftermath for him by creating in a definitive way a climate of tension between
colonists and Natives detrimental to the latter. Pushed farther
inland and always in the grip of internecine strife about whether or not to deal with the English or to doggedly pursue an unwinnable war, the Indian peoples were the targeted victims of the ceaseless migratory waves that won't delay to whelm them. April 18, 1644 was in something the final jolt, a reason why it was
remembered as Opechancanough’s day in Virginia. It was the start of the 3rd and last Anglo-Powhatan
War ending in 1646 with the capture and death of Opechancanough at the age 92.

June, 1644 - Edward Winslow is appointed
a governor of Plymouth. He reaches this position for the third time. He has been since 1643 among the United Colonies of New England commissioners.
During his term, some Plymouth residents leave the town to settle in Nauset, on
Cape Cod.

June, 1644
- The Great Assembly of Virginia decides to abandon any form of peace and
familiarity with the Indian nations and wherever possible to track and expel all
those who have hands stained with European blood.

The colonists undertook a series of punitive expeditions intended to root
out the Indians of the region. They marched against all the groups involved in
the uprising and planters living in the remote areas were invited as in 1622 to
group together into fortified places. Captain William Claiborne defended his
point of view according to which Indians living between the Rappahannock and
Potomac Rivers had not taken part in the April 18, uprising and that they had
distanced themselves from Powhatan.

John Endecott (1601-1664)

June 18,
1644 - After the abolition of the Council Of Twelve Men originally formed to
advise Director-General Willem Kieft on what to do with Indian Natives, the
settlers of New Netherland choose to replace it by a Council of Eight Men. At Kieft’s
request, it included Isaac Allerton, an English merchant settled for 3 years in
New Netherland. This one was soon sent to New Haven ask the colonists providing
men and equipment to defend New Amsterdam but after long talks, these
eventually refused.

June, 1644 - Already president of the United
Colonies of New England and commander in chief of the militia, John Endecott is
elected at 56, governor of Massachusetts Bay.

This man with rough personality who had been the first governor of the
colony before the arrival of John Winthrop had always been distinguishable by
his honesty and outspokenness, not always excluding brutality. Upright and
poorly concerned with wealth, he had devoted himself to public good with the
ambition to remain faithful to his Puritan convictions. Although without sound theological
knowledge, he however readily placed to be vigorously against talented ministers
as Thomas Morton and Roger Williams. He was nevertheless blamed for his misjudgments and his harshness in the conduct of some military operations.

Chief Passaconaway (?)

June 12,
1644 - Penacook Chief Passaconaway and his counterpart Nanamocomuck, representative
of the Nashaway sign a treaty under
which they agree to submit their people and their lands to the Massachusetts
Government.

This agreement ended a tense period during which the English had suspected
Penacook of selling furs to the Dutch and conspiring against them. Wanalancet,
the son of Passaconaway, had been, as such, taken hostage and held for two years
in Boston.
After realizing that they had acted only on assumptions, the English had tried
to be conciliatory and agreed to apologize. They had even invited Passaconaway
to go to Boston but, wary, the Indian chief had preferred to keep his distance.

Summer,
1644 - With the help of the Swedes, the Susquehannock,at
war for two years against the Province of Maryland, win a symbolic victory over it.July, 1644 - the government of Jamestown
begins operations against the Pamunkey, the Weyanoke, the Warresqueak and the Nansemond.
Commander-in-chief William Claiborne leads a major attack against the Pamunkey,
burning their villages and cornfields but the Indians vanish into the forest.

Summer, 1644 - in the port of Boston, a boat claiming to act on the orders of
Parliament attacks and captures another ship favorable to the king.
Massachusetts Governor John Winthrop shows his displeasure and sends a protest letter
to the Parliamentarians.

Shortly after, however, another ship of the Parliament attacked a boat
belonging to people from Dartmouth known for their royalist sympathies.
Governor Winthrop then decided to direct the artillery of the fort against the
pro-parliamentary captain and obliged him to pay a powder keg for his arrogance.

September 13, 1644 - Willem Kieft, the Director-General of New Netherland convenes
council members Teunis Cray, Isaac Deforest, Jan Verbrugge to define how best to
accommodate 200 refugees from Brazil.

In May, 1644, 400 to 500 people working for the Dutch West India Company,
serving in Brazil at Maranham and Recife, were ousted by the Portuguese and had
to find refuge in Curaþao. As it was impossible to provide food to so
many people, it was decided to send most of them to New Netherland. 130 soldiers
under the command of captain Jan de Fries and a number of additional persons forming
all in all two hundred people sailed to New Amsterdam aboard the Blue Cock captained
by Willem Oudemarkt.

September,
1644 – Back to Maryland after spending nearly two years in England, Governor
Leonard Calvert faces a Protestant rebellion conducted by William
Claiborne sided by Richard Ingle, benefiting from the Civil war to try to recover
the rights lost in 1638 on Kent Island.

Autumn, 1644 - After a year in England, Roger William is back in Providence
with his new charter.

Rev. John Eliot (1604-1690)

He had just landed when he succeeded to prevent Narragansett from starting
a suicidal war against the United Colonies of New England and their allies Mohegan.

November
29, 1644 - the General Court of Massachusetts passes a law intended to
encourage the conversion of the New England Natives. This convinces Rev. John
Eliot to learn Indian languages in preparation to a significant Christianization
campaign within the Indian communities.